Write me a Letter

will you, and let me think.”
    I thought.
    After a while she meandered over to the bookcase, took down the atlas, and began leafing through it.
    I broke the silence by saying, ”Don’t forget to pack your woollies.” She squealed with excitement, then leapt at me and kissed me on the cheek before I could defend myself. ”How come you changed your tune?”
    ”Sara,” I said, ”I am not so narrow-minded that I cannot openly and publicly declare that it is possible that you and Willing Boy might conceivably be of some small use to me up there. Also, if we’re going to screw Fats, why not do it royally. Maybe I’ll put you guys on the payroll, too, maybe. I wonder what they use for money in Canada —probably beads or walrus teeth. Are you sure Willing Boy can get off work?”
    ”I’m sure,” she said, blushing, trying to hide her face by peering down into the atlas that she’d opened up on the desk. ”He’s already asked for the rest of the week off.”
    ”Aha,” I said, waggling my eyebrows suggestively. ”Planning a little trip, were we? Not….” I put on a deeply shocked look, ”...not eloping? Sara! Have you introduced him to your folks yet?”
    ”Are you kidding?” she said. ”They only feed him three times a week. Mom thinks he’s the most gorgeous thing she’s ever seen.”
    ”Who doesn’t,” I said. ”But still, marriage is a big step…”
    ”Grow up, will ya? We were thinking of driving up to Tahoe, if you really must know. There,” she said, pointing at the right-hand side of the map of our friendly neighbor to the north. ” Montreal . And that river it’s on is the St. Lawrence.”
    ”Thought so,” I said. ”Wonder how often dog sleds leave for there. Sara, if you really want to earn your keep, get on to Rogg Travel. Ask for Ron. Tell him the usual three for two round-trips to Montreal , via New York , return open, leaving tomorrow morning. Ask him to book us the New York-Montreal and Montreal - New York portions in different names, maybe you and Willing Boy as a mister and missus, as in married, and our seats shouldn’t be together. Ask him to book us hotel rooms for a couple of nights, too, somewhere central. Then call Fats. The number’s in here under ‘Fats.’ ” I got my address book out of the drawer and flipped it to her. ”Tell him you’re my secretary, I got a lead and I’ll be out of town for a couple of days but you don’t know where and you don’t know when exactly I’ll be back. Then you better get on to Willing Boy and tell him the news, likewise your folks. Got it?”
    ”Consider it done, Prof.” She went to work on the phone. I gazed at the map of Canada for a moment. As far as I could recall, I’d only ever met one Canadian, or at least one who would admit it, an artist who lived off Laurel Canyon Boulevard and who painted nothing but highly realistic and greatly detailed female nudes. He also smiled a lot. I often wondered if there was any connection. Canada —Jesus, it even looked cold. Half the towns in it were named Fort something, which was hardly reassuring, and the other half had names you couldn’t even pronounce, like Flin Flon, Michipicoten, and Povungnituk. Look it up for yourself if you think I’m kidding.

    ”Tickets will be waiting for us at the TWA desk at the airport,” the twerp reported about then. ”And the other ones at Air Canada , in New York . There’s the flight number, eight forty-five departure tomorrow morning. Hour and twenty minutes layover at Kennedy. Arrive Montreal about ten-thirty their time that night. He’ll try and get us rooms at something called the Windsor Hotel, if he can’t, he’ll get back to us.” I didn’t ask her how many rooms she had booked, what business of mine was it anyway, I wasn’t their durn chaperone. I did resolve to have a long talk with her before we left about the birds and the bees, I was sure there was a lot she could teach me. ”And while we’re on the subject,” she said, ”what’s the usual three for two?”
    ”It’s what you do when someone else is paying,” I said. ”You cash in your first-class ticket, go steerage, and pocket the dif, I thought everybody knew that. In our case, we cash in two first-class tickets and buy three steerage. Even I couldn’t justify hitting Fats for traveling expenses for three people, two maybe. I’m going to have enough trouble getting my dough out of him as it is.”
    Shortly thereafter, Sara, having completed her calls,